true. Nothing fo filly as indolence when it hopes to difguife itself: every one knows it by its faunter, as they do his Majefty (God bless him) at a mafquerade, by the firmness of his tread and the elevation of his chin. However, fomewhat I had to fay that has a little fhadow of reason in it. I have been in town (I fuppofe you know) flaunting about at all kind of public places with two friends lately returned from abroad. The world itself has fome attractions in it to a folitary of fix years ftanding; and agreeable well-meaning people of fenfe (thank Heaven there are fo few of them) are my peculiar magnet. It is no wonder then if I felt fome reluctance at parting with them fo foon; or if my fpirits, when I returned back to my cell, fhould fink for a time, not indeed to ftorm and tempeft, but a good deal below changeable. Befides, Seneca fays (and my pitch of philofophy does not pretend to be much above Seneca) " Nunquam mores, quas extuli, refero. Aliquid ex "eo quod compofui, turbatur: aliquid ex "bis, quæ fugavi, redit." And it will happen to fuch as us, mere imps of fciWell it may, when Wifdom her

ence.

felf is forced often

in fweet retired folitude

To plume her feathers, and let grow her wings,
That in the various buftle of refort
Were all too ruffled, and fometimes impair'd.

It is a foolish thing that without money One cannot either live as one pleases, or where and with whom one pleases. Swift fomewhere fays, that money is liberty; and I fear money is friendship too and fociety, and almost every external blefung. It is a great, though an ill-natured, comfort, to fee molt of thofe who have it in plenty, without pleasure, without liberty,

and without friends.

I am not altogether of your opinion as to your hiftorical confolation in time of trouble: a calm melancholy it may produce, a filler fort of defpair (and that only in fome circumftances, and on fome conftitutions); but I doubt no real comfort or content can ever arife in the human mind, but from hope.

I take it very ill you fhould have been in the twentieth year of the war *, and yet fay nothing of the retreat before Syracufe: is it, or is it not, the finest thing Thucydides, 1. vii,

you ever read in your life? And how
does Xenophon or Plutarch agree with
you? For my part I read Ariftotle, h
poetics, politics, and morals; though I
do not well know which is which. h
the first place, he is the hardest autr
by far I ever meddled with. Then be
has a dry concifenefs, that makes ce
imagine one is perufing a table of co-
tents rather than a book: it taftes for al
the world like chopped hay, or a
ther like chopped logic; for he ha
a violent affection to that art, being n
fome fort his own invention; fo th
often lofes himself in little trifling
tinctions and verbal niceties; and, wiz
is worfe, leaves you to extricate him a
well as you can.
Thirdly, he has i
fered vaftly from the tranfcribblers, #
all authors of great brevity necefia
muft. Fourthly and laftly, he has ab
dance of fine uncommon things, whic
make him well worth the pains he gr
one. You fee what you are to expe

from him.

I

LETTER LVI.

Mr. Gray to Mr. Walpole,

Cambridge, r

25

HAD been abfent from this plate days, and at my return found Cibber) bookt upon my table: I return you thanks for it, and have already run 05 a confiderable part; for who could re Mrs. Letitia Pilkington's recomments tion? (By the way, is there any gentlewoman t? or has fomebody pt: the ftyle of a fcribbling woman's panes ric to deceive and laugh at Colley) E feems to me full as pert and as dal ufual. There are whole pages of co mon-place ftuff, that for ftupidity mg have been wrote by Dr. Waterland, any other grave divine, did not the ing faucy phrafe give them at a di an air of youth and gaiety: it is ver true, he is often in the right with rega to Tully's weakneffes; but was there one that did not fee them? Thofe, imagine, that would find a man afte God's own heart, are no more likely a

Entitled "Obfervations on Cicero's Chi"racter."

This lady made herself more known iamą time after the date of this letter.

YOUR friendship has interested itself in Y my affairs fo naturally, that I cannot help troubling you a little with a detail

of them f.

which have great beauties. There is a
a Poem lately published by Thomfor,
called the Castle of Indolence, with kme
good ftanzas in it. Mr. Mafon my
acquaintance; I liked that Ode ‡ much,
but have found no one else that did. He
has much fancy, little judgment, and a
good deal of modefty; I take him for a
good and well-meaning creature; but
then he is really in fimplicity a child, and
loves every body he meets with: be
reads little or nothing; writes abundance,
and that with a defign to make his for-
tune by it. My best compliments to
Mrs. Wharton and your family: does
that name include any body I am not yet
acquainted with ?

From the fame to the jam. Stoke, Auguft 19, 172. AM glad you have had any pleafere

Greffet; he feems to me a truly e gant and charming writer; the Mechet is the belt Comedy I ever read; his Eward I could fcarce get through; it is puerile; though there are good fuch as this for example:

« Le jour d'un nouveau regne eft le jur de grats."

And now, my dear Wharton, why must I tell you a thing fo contrary to my own wishes and your's? I believe it is impoffible for me to fee you in the North, or to enjoy any of thofe agreeable hours I had flattered myfelf with. This bufinefs will oblige me to be in town feveral times during the fummer, particularly in Auguft, when half the money is to be paid; besides, the I good people here would think me the most carelefs and ruinous of mortals, if I thould take fuch a journey at this time. The only fatisfaction I can pretend to, is that of hearing from you, and particularly at this time when I was bid to expect the good news of an increase of your family. Your opinion of Diodorus is doubtlefs right; but there are things in him very curious, got out of better authorities now loft. Do you remember the Egyptian hiftory, and particularly the account of the gold mines? My own readings have been cruelly interrupted: what I have been highly pleafed with, is the new Comedy from Paris by Greffet, called le Mechant; if you have it not, buy his works all together in two little voJumes; they are collected by the Dutch bookfellers, and confequently contain fome trash; but then there are the Vorvert, the Epifle to P. Bougeant, the Chartreufe, that to his fifter, an Ode on his country, and another on Mediocrity, and the Sidnei, another Comedy, all

The reader need hardly be told, that the 4th Ode in the Collection of his Poems was inferted in the place of thete atterisks.

The paragraph here omitted contained an account of Mr. Gray's lofs of a houfe by fire in Cornhill, and the expence he should be at in rebuilding it. Though it was infured, he could at this time ill bear to lay out the additional fum necellary for the purpose.,

But good lines will make any thing ther than a good play: however, you t to confider this is a collection made up by the Dutch bookfellers; many things finifhed, or written in his youth, or de figned not for the world, but to mašt his friends laugh, as the Lutrin vivas &c. There are two noble lines, which as they are in the middle of an Oden the King, may perhaps have elcaped you;

"Le cri d'un peuple beureux eft la finit eisquna, Qui fait parler des Rois ?"

Which is very true, and fhould bre been a hint to himself not to write Odes to the King at all,

As I have nothing more to fay at prefent, I fill my paper with the beginning of an Effay; what name to give know not; but the fubject is the Alliance of Education and Government: I mean

Ode to a Water Nymph, published about this time in Dodley's Mifcellany.

to fhew that they must both concur to produce great and useful men. I defire your judgment upon it before I proceed any further.

LETTER LX. From the fame to the fame.

gether: we fhall have our little jokes like other people, and our old ftories: brandy will finish what port began; and a month after the time you will fee in fome corner of a London Evening-Poft, " Yefterday "died the Reverend Mr. John Gray, "Senior Fellow of Clare-Hall, a face"tious companion, and well refpected by "all that knew him. His death is fup

pofed to have been occafioned by a "fit of an apoplexy, being found fallen "out of bed with his head in the cham"ber-pot.'

In the mean while, to go on with my account of new books. Montefquieu's work, which I mentioned before, is now publishing anew in 2 vols. 8vo. Have you teen old Crebillion's Catalina, a tragedy, which has had a prodigious run at Paris? Hiftorical truth is too much perverted in it, which is ridiculous in a flory fo generally known; but if you can get over this, the fentiments and verfification are fine, and mott of the characters (particularly the principal one) painted with great fpirit.

"" Cambridge, March 9, 1743. You afk for fome account of books. The principal I can tell you of is a work of the Prefident Montefquieu, the labour of twenty years; it is called L'Efprit des Loix, 2 vol. 4to, printed at Geneva. He lays down the principles on which are founded the three forts of government, defpotifm, the limited monarchy, and the republican; and fhews how from thefe are deduced the laws and customs by which they are guided and maintained; the education proper to each form; the influence of climate, fituation, religion, &c. on the minds of particular nations and on their policy. The fubject, you fee, is as extenfive as mankind; the thoughts perfectly new, generally admirable as they are juit, fometimes a little too refined. In fhort, there are faults, but fuch as an ordinary man could never have committed. The ftyle very lively and concife (confequently fometimes obfcure); it is the gravity of Tacitus, whom he admires, tempered with the gaiety and fire of a Frenchman. The time of night will not fuffer me to go on; but I will write again in a week.

1

LETTER LXI.

From the fame to the fame.

Cambridge, April 25, 1749. PERCEIVE that fecond parts are as bad to write as they can be to read; for this, which you ought to have had a week after the firft, has been a full month in coming forth. The fpirit of lazinefs (the fpirit of the place) begins to poffefs even me, who have fo long declaimed against it; yet has it not fo prevailed, but that I feel that difcontent with myself, that ennui, that ever accompanies it in its beginnings. Time will fettle my confcience; time will reconcile me to this languid companion: we shall fmoke, we shall tipple, we fhall doze to

Mr. Birch, the indefatigable, has just put out a thick octavo of original papers of Queen Elizabeth's time; there are many curious things in it, particularly letters from Sir Robert Cecil (Salisbury) about his negotiations with Henry IV. of France, the Earl of Monmouth's odd account of Queen Elizabeth's death, feveral peculiarities of James I. and Prince Henry, &c. and above all, an excellent account of the fate of France, with characters of the King, his court, and miniftry, by Sir George Carew, ambaffador there. This, I think, is all new worth mentioning, that I have feen or heard of; except a Natural History of Peru, in Spanish, printed at London, by Don fomething, a man of learning, fent thither by that court on purpofe.

You afk after my Chronology. It was begun, as I told you, almost two years ago, when I was in the midst of Diogenes Laertius and his philofophers, as a procemium to their works. My intention in forming this table was not fo much for public events, though thefe too have a column affigned them, but rather in a literary way to compare the time of all great men, their writings and their tranfactions. I have brought it from the 30th Olympiad, waere it begins, to the